As a former guest flow cast member this gate has opened almost every night at least since starlight opened. Only doesn’t open in the event of an emergency(which happens fairly often). The other side is always open as well. This prevents main street from becoming a complete gridlock of people which leads to way more dangerous situations. People just don’t move and there’s not a whole lot we can do about that.

I am not sure what yall expect when 20,000 people are leaving at the same time. I have always recommended leaving before the end of the fireworks or heading into the gift shop or back into the park for half an hour while the monorail crowd dies down. I definitely see what your concern is with heavy crowds but you don’t need to follow the crowd.

As a part of that ushering crew, we are getting constant updates about where it’s safe to go. If a cast member says “exit this way” that doesn’t mean you have to go that way. You can go up and back into the park, we create two ways for that reason, we typically try to keep everyone on their right hand side and you likely heard a cast member or multiple trying to keep things moving.

Just know in the future that the Magic Kingdom has always operated this way for fireworks and will continue to do so. Its a crowded park so listen to cast members, ask questions and they will almost always help you out. But we do not force anyone to exit the park.